Of late, biocomposites are yet to be seen in high magnitude. The depletion of petro­leum resources coupled with awareness of global environmental problem provides the alternatives for a new green material in which the products are compatible with the environment and independent of petroleum based resources. Biocomposite with starch used as a matrix is one of the most popular biodegradable biocomposite and is highly investigated by researchers.5960 Biodegradable matrices are reinforced with natural fibers to improve the composites properties and these composites provide positive environmental advantages, good mechanical properties and light weight.6163

There is a wide variety of studies that have been reported on the performance of incorporation sugar palm fiber in petroleum based matrix. Bachtiar et al.64 carried out a study on properties of sugar palm fiber reinforced High Impact Polystyrene (HIPS) while Ishak et al.65 and Sahari et al.66-67 deals with sugar palm fiber reinforced unsaturated polyester. In the meantime, other research groups have conducted investigation on sugar palm fiber combined with epoxy composites.3,68’69 However no previous research has been done on sugar palm fiber reinforced polymer matrix derived from natural resources. It is important to note that, we can extract the bio­polymer which acts as matrix from sugar palm tree itself. So, the interesting part of these study is we investigate the properties of an environmentally friendly com­posite where the matrix (sugar palm starch) and fiber (sugar palm fiber) are derived from one source, that is, sugar palm tree., that is, sugar palm tree as shown in Fig. 9.12.